With all due form, without hurry or jostling, the whole tribe camped in a wide ellipse, each clan in its place, each family having a fixed position in the circle. The tepees rose like magic, and their threads of smoke began to creep up into the clear sky like mysterious plants, slender and wavering.
Greetings passed from camp to camp, the head men met in council, and, as the sun rose higher, swarms of the young men galloped to and fro, laying out a racing-course and making up for a procession under Wilson's direction.
Curtis said: "I am not interdicting any of their customs merely because they belong to their old life, but because some of them are coarse or hurtful. Their dance is not harmful unless protracted to the point of interfering with their work. That they are all living somewhat in the past, to-day, is true; but they will put away this finery and go to work with me to-morrow. To cut them off from all amusement is cruel fanaticism. No people can endure without amusement."
"How appropriate their gay colors seem in this hot, dun land!" remarked Elsie. "They would look gaudy in a studio; but out here they are grateful to the sense."
In the centre of the wide circle of tepees a huge bower of pines was being erected for the dance, and pulsing through the air the voice of the criers could be heard, as they rode slowly round the circle publishing the programme of the day.
"Looking over the camp towards the hills it is not difficult to imagine one's self back in the old days," said Maynard. "I saw Sitting Bull camped like this. See, here is the 'Soldier Lodge' or chief's headquarters," and he pointed to a large, handsome tepee set in one of the foci of the big ellipse.
Everywhere they went Curtis and his friends met with hearty greeting. "Hoh—hoh! The Little Father!" the old men cried, and came to shake hands, and the women smiled, looking up from their work. The little children, though they ran away at first, came out again when they knew that it was the Captain who called. Jennie gave hints about the cooking, and praised the neat tepees and the pretty dresses, while Elsie, looking upon it all with reflective eyes, could not help thinking, "Such will be my work if I do my duty as a wife."
Once she looked at the firm, bold, facial outlines of the man she had learned to love, and snuggled a little closer into his shelter; he would toil to make every hardship light, that was certain; but, oh! the dreary winters! There were moments when she took to herself a part of the love and obedience this people showed Curtis. Here was a little kingdom over which Curtis reigned, a despotic monarch, and she, if she did her duty, would reign by his side. It had, at least, the virtue of being an unconventional self-sacrifice. And then, again, she smiled to think that Elsie Bee Bee should feel a touch of pride in being the wife of an Indian agent!
Driving his guests back to the agency, Curtis returned to the camp and moved about on foot among his people. Wherever he went he seemed to give zest to the sports, and knowing this he remained with them till noon, and only came in to rest his weary feet and aching eyes for half an hour before lunch.
It was unutterably sweet to stretch out in his big, battered easy-chair, in the shaded coolness of the library, and feel Elsie's smooth, light hand in his hair.